Eggshells
by Bandtrees
Summary: After that moment, cracking eggshells were all Bluefeather could hear when she closed her eyes. She always thought of her family as a pair of birds guarding a fragile nest — the protective, maternal Dovesage and the overbearing, enthusiastic Thrushtalon loved their eggs so dearly they'd cracked beneath the pressure. (Reupload from Ao3, originally posted on 2/22/20)


After that moment, cracking eggshells were all Bluefeather could hear when she closed her eyes. She always thought of her family as a pair of birds guarding a fragile nest — the protective, maternal Dovesage and the overbearing, enthusiastic Thrushtalon loved their eggs so dearly they'd cracked beneath the pressure.

There was a third kit, Graykit, another molly. Bluefeather didn't remember her — she'd painfully suffocated to death in her nest one night, not long after her siblings opened their eyes. The grief changed Dovesage and Thrushtalon, who put their all into caring for the kits that remained.

Dovesage wanted Bluefeather to be a medicine cat, to be the kind of savior cats like the dying Graykit needed in their final moments. It took all of Bluefeather's resolve to put her paw down and say she wanted to be a warrior, and it hurt. Every day, she could feel her parents' judgmental gaze on her back, but she knew she wasn't built for the medicine den.

Whereas Bluefeather shied away from her parents' expectations, her brother Whiteshade seemed to lean into them. It was always ironic to her — her small and shy self being the rebel to Whiteshade's burly and cocky warrior — but there was a hint of loneliness beneath Whiteshade's false arrogance.

The white tom always had... issues. He had a nonexistent temper that only seemed to worsen around her. He was insufferable — Bluefeather wanted to help him, but he shoved her away. He always would. They were now warriors, and their dynamic was less like siblings and more like a kit trying to get a new friend to like them. They'd never moved past that, and it saddened not only Bluefeather but the rest of their family as well.

Eventually she'd hardened, developing a tough shell around the white tom not unlike the one he had for her. Her desperation to know her brother faded, and she'd give him nothing but a glare as if to say, "I've stopped trying".

But there were moments. Moments where they acted like a normal family. After failing her first warrior assessment, Whiteshade brought Bluefeather to go hunting with him. She wanted to imagine a universe where they did that all the time, and she didn't dislike the idea at all. It was one of the best nights of Bluefeather's life, even though by the next morning they were back to passing eachother by with nothing but a glance or a muttered insult.

Despite the prickly wall she guarded her heart with, she was always envious of the other Clan cats who were close to their siblings.

Those moments brought joy to their parents, who were glad to see the two not being angry with each other, but as Bluefeather got older, she'd realized it was less about the siblings' wellbeing than it was about their parents looking good. Pretending for a moment that their family hadn't been falling apart all these seasons.

Weren't they all?

Whiteshade never took a mate, at least not to Bluefeather's knowledge. She couldn't imagine a she-cat ever tolerating his presence for longer than needed, or a tom for that matter. He seemed to repel every cat that tried to get close to him.

One thing he was, though, was a skilled warrior. He had to get his rage out someway or another, and fighting seemed to be a good way to do it. The leader often paired him with Flarepelt due to his talent for dictating battles, a pairing that was honestly laughable. Neither cat could seem to stand the other, and it was only because they always had some kind of mission to get through that they didn't instantly tear eachother apart.

"This is IceClan territory." A white molly at the head of the opposing patrol snarled, deep blue eyes watching Whiteshade's movements. His green gaze was uncaring of the reprimand, and by the slight smirk Bluefeather knew his only intention was to piss off the patrol leader further.

Flarepelt seemed to be fuming, and he stepped forward to apologize before the fight escalated, but by the time he started to open his mouth Whiteshade had beat him to it.

"It was my rabbit."

The white hare the tom pursued that got the FireClan patrol into this to begin with had already vanished. Bluefeather knew how petty her brother could be, and deep down this was less about a piece of prey and more about causing irritation to the other cats — which he was very much succeeding at.

"You don't own that rabbit 'till you've broken its neck." The IceClan molly sneered. "Get back on your side of the border and no cat needs to get hurt over this."

To any outsider who didn't particularly know either cat well, the molly and Whiteshade looked more like siblings than he and Bluefeather did, but Whiteshade was a much larger cat- his paws massive and his head a large square shape. The molly was well-muscled too, and fairly big, but she still appeared small in front of the tom.

He didn't look threatened. He never had. A small smile drew across his face, and he planted his paws flat on IceClan's cold ground as if to irritate the group further.

Ginger pelt dusted with snow, Flarepelt lightly nudged Whiteshade's side with his tail. "Whiteshade, just leave them alone." Bluefeather's ears were warm with embarrassment, her heart pounding in her chest.

A cat behind the white IceClan molly shook his head. "We're not going to warn you again. Just go."

"Or what?" Whiteshade cocked his head, grin spreading on his face further. "You think I'm scared of a bunch of fluffballs who hide in the snow all year round?" He crouched, claws flexing. "Bet I could reach it before you. Pretty molly like you looks like she's never hunted a night in her life."

The patrol leader's eyes widened, and she was no doubt about to hurl an insult back as Whiteshade leaped forward, shoving her to the snow to follow the trail of the lost rabbit. Another cat on the FireClan patrol, Twigrose, bounded after him, as Bluefeather and Flarepelt exchanged a knowing and exhausted look.

The IceClan molly scrambled to her paws, shaking her pelt free of dirt and frost. "Mangy bastard—!" She hissed, tossing a glance over her shoulder. "The mouse-brain's headed straight for the Thunderpath!"

Ears flattening against her head, Bluefeather's blood ran cold. "The Thunderpath...?"

"StarClan, that idiot!" Flarepelt lashed his tail, looking to Bluefeather with large green eyes, matching Whiteshade's. "Twigrose too! We have to go after them!"

He didn't wait for Bluefeather to respond as he tore off into IceClan territory, the molly stumbling on her paws past him. What had Whiteshade gotten himself into this time?!

The ground of IceClan territory was hard, nothing like her home territory's soft grass, and she could feel the stone beneath her feet bruising her paw pads. The wind bit the skin of her ears and nose, and through the flurry, all she could focus on was the orange form she was following. Distantly, she heard the pawsteps of the IceClan cats behind her, but this was no longer about the patrol.

By the time she reached the road, Bluefeather felt as if her paws were about to fall off. She took heaving breaths, trying to steady herself when she finally saw her brother. He'd caught up with the hare, and was in the process of biting down on its neck to kill it.

"Whiteshade—!" Her voice was quiet beneath the howling wind and the distant approach of a monster. With muscles she thought she'd ruined just running here, and speed she'd never summoned in her life, she sprung out onto the path to shove her brother out of the monster's way.

She didn't turn her head, but knew all too well that it was coming for her instead. Before she could will herself to move out of the way, pressure she'd never imagined possible rammed into her side. The world tumbled, and she could hear her bones splinter in excruciating pain beneath the paws of the monster.

Not once, but twice, and she knew instantly she was going to die. She'd heard the stories — a leader who lost all nine lives in one fleeting moment on a Thunderpath, cats who couldn't be buried because they were reduced to splatters of gore on the gravel. Was that her? She couldn't move her head to look.

The shadow overhead passed as quickly as it came. Vision blurring, her eyes were fixed on a blur moving closer and closer to her, and as it came into view, she recognized the large pale paws and green eyes. Whiteshade, his fur dusted with the vehicle's fumes as he crouched to lift her broken form by the scruff.

"Oh, StarClan, oh, StarClan," she could acutely hear Twigrose murmuring. "Can we even take her back to camp...?"

"She's still moving." Flarepelt whispered, as she barely managed to loll her head to the side to look at the cats gathered around her. The IceClan molly was saying something to Whiteshade, and Bluefeather found herself wondering through the pain if she'd die never knowing the name of that cat.

"Camp's that direction. She's not going to make a trek all the way to your Clan."

Bluefeather was mewling Whiteshade's name, but wasn't sure if it was coming out. Her bones cracked like eggshells every time she tried to move them, the snow staining with red as she was dragged by the scruff. The agony brought clarity, her brain forcing her awake, but eventually, all she could do was slip into the comfortable darkness calling for her.

...

All she could see when she opened her eyes again was white. It took a moment for her to realize it wasn't the whiteness of StarClan's borders, but Whiteshade's fur as he curled himself around her in the IceClan medicine den. She couldn't move her hind legs, unsure if it was herbs she had been given to numb the pain or something in her body that had stopped functioning.

The IceClan medicine cat was a long-furred golden-brown tabby, who explained to her what happened. She remembered — how could she ever forget? — but any attempt at communication was slurred by the poppy seeds the cat had given her. It was nightfall, and Flarepelt and Twigrose had since returned to FireClan camp, but Whiteshade insisted on staying behind for her as she healed.

As she drifted off once more against her brother's warm fur, all she could think was that he hadn't slept next to her like this since they were kits.


End file.
